• Switorik@lemmy.zip
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    1 month ago

    I believe it’s called playing the game.

    When you start a racing game, do you start with the best cars unlocked or do you play the game to earn them? This is the same, you can do bounties by yourself with the arrow but it’s going to take much longer than doing high level bounties or other missions as part of a crew.

    • Agent Karyo@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Or you could play a game that’s not exclusively built around currently OP cash shop items (that get nerfed after the refund period is over).

      • Switorik@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        I guess I played it differently than you.

        I played with a friend until I could afford my own ship with in game currency. Did whatever missions I enjoyed playing to the point they started paying out pretty good. Bought more ships with in game currency.

        I never cared about what is OP, but I also don’t care about pvp so there’s that.

        If you want to try any ship, either rent them, wait for ies or whatever its called, or ask random strangers.

        • MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          Human beings think in stories. And a good story has a villain. An underwhelming and poorly managed game with an odd business model is a boring story. An evil scam stealing thousands of dollars from people is a great story. The fact that you can get the ships for free and some people think doing so is fun counteracts the narrative, so it’s dismissed.

          Anyway, here’s my story for the haters to dismiss. I spent 35 dollars on the cheapest ship and played around in the game because a streamer I like said it was worth checking out if you’re interested in seeing an unfinished game get made. I thought it was neat. I had wander around and enjoyed the public transit systems on the planets. The terrestrial locations were intersesting. Then I hopped in my ship and did some missions. I tried cargo delivery, which involved flying around and travelling and landing, and it was cool but it got boring quick. I also tried fighting some pirates, and it seemed more lucrative and interesting but I didn’t have a very good ship for combat and I was bored of how long it takes to get to where the pirates are. I did them long enough to figure out how profitable it was, and realised I could get a better ship without that much trouble, but I’d get pretty bored, and at that point the inventory system was very buggy and everyone’s money got reset pretty frequently so it wasn’t something I wanted to prioritise.

          So instead I started hanging out with streamers in the game. It was a pretty fun time because when I was around lots of other players, I could explore their ships. Some of the mid-size ships looked really fun. Think flying the Millenium Falcon around with your friends fighting space pirates, that’s the fantasy. I also realised I could buy a hoverbike and go zooming around the planets, and that was cool. I got to explore the Hammerhead and the 890 jump, which were really cool. Those are the ships that cost a thousand dollars. The hammerhead is a military ship and it’s labyrinthine. Full of pipes and Jefferies’ tubes and gun emplacements. It felt like being on board a Star Destroyer crossed with Serenity. I didn’t even get a sense for the layout of the ship in the half hour I spent on it. The 890 jump is a luxury cruise ship. I got to explore that one extensively, and it was really cool. There’s cabins, a bar, a pool, and even laundry rooms and kitchens for the guests. That’s where the money for this game is actually going, it’s going into doing literal architecture on these ships to make them as realistic and interesting as possible. They’re hiring architects instead of programmers. And you know what? That’s okay. Architecture geeks deserve fun games too, it doesn’t have to be all first person shooters and platformers. The terrestrial environments are the same story as the ships, they’re creating immersive and realistic environments where you can actually believe people live. Can you do anything interesting in these environments? No. But the environments themselves are interesting, so the architects are doing their jobs.

          • Annoyed_🦀 🏅@monyet.cc
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            1 month ago

            Thanks for the story. I haven’t played the game and it’s not my genre so i wouldn’t get into it, but i always assume for it to make so much money while still in development, they must’ve done something right to hook in the niche group that is passionate about these sort of game. I don’t really get the hate tbh.

    • dustyData@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      When you start a racing game, do you start with the best cars unlocked or do you play the game to earn them?

      Yes. Most racing games have an arcade/zero stakes mode were you can race with almost any game. The gated progression has been on a separate story/career mode since the early 2000s. Except, you know, on the scam live service AAA mtx whale hunting games.

      • Switorik@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        Last nfs game I played, I started with a clunker and did missions to earn money to buy better cars.

        You know what, I’d prefer if they took the playing part out and just gave me everything so I can stare at my cars and be bored because there’s no progression.

        • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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          1 month ago

          Dude literally mentioned that racing games offer arcade (a number of things unlocked) and career (progression) as separate modes, dunno why you ignored it

    • themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      Sure, but racing games simply gate your progression for gameplay purposes. Here I’m just working at a job to eventually be able to afford my own ship, and I already do that for a house in real life. The progression isn’t gated by game mechanics, it’s gated by landlordism and capitalism. If I wanted to work a space job I’d just go played eve.